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Rocko's Modern Life Wiki:Manual of Style/Literacy
The Rocko's Modern Life Wiki has a specific set of guidelines regarding the literacy in articles. It is recommended to be consistent with such to avoid conflict of interest. Standard English The golden rule is to use standard English in a formal writing style. This means the article speaks to the target audience (Family entertainment) in a way they understand by being straightforward and concise while being free of clichés and needless technical jargon to focus on the points being presented. It is essential to know if any of the below sections are meant to work with each other in harmony. Avoid the use of contractions, abbreviated versions of words, colloquialism and slang expressions and nonstandard diction. Point of View Writing must be discussed in a neutral, objective tone, giving no bias or preferences and desisting the use of subjectiveness. Avoid the use of imperative form and first person (I) and second person (you) when writing articles. Mechanics Spelling All spelling must be in its American-English (AmE) variant. The only exception to this rule is if the provided text is a quote or a title. A list of various AmE and BrE spelling variations can be found here. Words has to be spelled correctly in context. Keep in mind that the variations in the link are not the only cases of differentiation in the two types of English. When choosing words, make sure they are preferred in America compared to the rest of the world. For example, "mollusk" is the U.S. variant of "mollusc". Foreign Terms Foreign terms are to be used sparingly as it creates a form of jargon for the English reader. Attempt to anglicize the spelling of foreign terms unless it is impossible to do so, in which case the word is italicized. If an accent mark is required to be typed in English such as soufflé (where an accent mark is needed at the e in the end), use the keyboard shortcuts to render the accent mark. Numerical Spelling Numbers from 0-20 should be spelled out. Exceptions are dates, addresses, money, scores, percentages, fractions, pages, and decimals. This is because numbers after twenty tend to have the "twenty" with the number before "ten" said in one phrase (twenty-one/two/etc.) It would save more space this way and be less tedious to type. Grammar All grammar must conform to the American-English (AmE) language. There are plenty of online sources that you can review "grammar basics" of topics that aren't covered but should have known from prior experience. Sentence Structures It is important to know how sentences are constructed and how different types of sentences are formed. Writing coherent sentences and using variety demonstrates for an effective written article. As such, it is necessary to avoid types of errors in sentences such run-on sentences, sentence fragments, and comma splicing to avoid choppiness but to allow flow in the composition. Possessives The preferred plural possessive style is using the apostrophe after an S, not before it, for example, Professor Venomous' instead of Professor Venomous's. This is because in scenarios with plural nouns that are meant to be a possessive, such as "Michaels'," the "S" sounds more like a "Z," which is when an apostrophe will suffice. Tenses Write articles using the present tense (specifically historical present where it uses the present tense to describe the past) and active voice even when certain subjects, objects, and so on, are discontinued in the Rocko's Modern Life world. The only situations where this is an exception is for deceased subjects and past events. Punctuation Punctuation adheres to American-English rules, such as straight double quotations ("), serial comma, and Latin punctuation always ending with a period. As an exception, however, quotes for subjects, such as episode titles, should not have punctuation inside of the parentheses. Examples: : Subject scenario :: : Rocko Rama made her debut in the episode "No Pain, No Gain." :: : Rocko Rama made her debut in the episode "No Pain, No Gain". : Character quote scenario :: : Rocko says to, Heffer, “You know, Heffer? We're both really outta shape. I'm huffing upstainrs and you're getting...well...”. :: : Rocko says to, Heffer “You know, Heffer? We're both really outta shape. I'm huffing upstainrs and you're getting...well...”. : Latin abbreviation scenario :: : Rocko vs the 21st century :: : Rocko vs.the 21st century Dashes There are three types of dashes used commonly. The smallest is the hyphen (-), the medium length is the en dash (–), and the longest is the em dash (—). The em dash is only used for separating quotes and sources and breaking sentences, and because the en dash does the same thing and also indicates span and differentiation, the em-dash will not be used but rather the en dash. The en dash and hyphen do not substitute each other. The hyphen is used to connect words to form compound words. This is important to know when creating references. Straight vs. Curly (Smart) Quotes The only acceptable type of quote designs are the straight quotes (' ") since they are available on your keyboard to type short-handedly and majority of the articles uses the straight punctuation characters. This means that curly (smart) punctuation characters (‘ ’ “ ”) are not acceptable due to the symbols being outside of a common keyboard and being tedious to render in the articles using keyboard shortcuts. :: : “The 21st century is a very dangerous century.” :: : "The 21st century is a very dangerous century." Oxford/Serial Comma If a sentence contains a series of three or more words, phrases, or clauses, the Oxford comma can be used before the coordinating conjunction and the final item in a series. This comma is required on all the articles. The Oxford comma's main purpose is to clarify what would be ambiguity or confusion as it is otherwise a matter of style, so depending on the context, a missing Oxford might be needed. For the sake of asking less responsibility, the Oxford comma is added in any context. Examples: :: : The main charactes in the series are Rocko Rama, Heffer Wolfe, Filburt Turtle, Ed Bighead, Bev Bighead, Rachel Bighead, Dr. Hutchison, Chuck and Leon. :: : The main charactes in the series are Rocko Rama, Heffer Wolfe, Filburt Turtle, Ed Bighead, Bev Bighead, Rachel Bighead, Dr. Hutchison, Chuck, and Leon. Trivia This an often disputed part of writing articles. General trivia can be difficult to write for a developing show and we try to keep trivia sections as short as possible. The general rule for writing trivia on the wiki is to firstly consider is the fact notable? Would a show crew member shares a fun fact of it? Usually, cultural references, continuity, and production notes are trivia and belong to their sections. An example of this would be: This is a notable fact from the episode "Ultraclops". If not notable and the fact does not contribute to the title or episode then it really isn't worth mentioning. This is not a good example of piece of trivia because it isn't special or worth mentioning in the trivia section. It is important to consider if a fact is really worth mentioning. Captions Every image should have a brief (unless it is a technical graph where everything needs to be explained) caption unless it is a "self-captioning" image (book covers) or an unambiguous depiction of the subject of the article. They will start with a capital letter, be sentence fragments, and should not end with a period unless a complete sentence occurs in the caption. ---- Credits to the OK K.O.! Wiki’s Manual of Style/Literacy along with the original author.